4. Don’t let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision. Leadership often requires leaning on superb instinct.

5. You can’t make someone else’s choices, and you shouldn’t let someone else make yours. “Since ultimate responsibility is yours, make sure the choice is yours and you are not responding to the pressure and desire of ­others,” he writes.

6. Success ultimately rests on small things. “Leaders have to have a feel for small things—a feel for what is going on in the depths of an organization where small things reside.”

7. Share credit, because people need recognition just as they need food and water. “Share the credit, take the blame, and quietly find out and fix things that went wrong,” Powell writes. “Whenever you place the cause of one of your actions outside yourself, it’s an excuse and not a reason.”

8. Remain calm. In the heat of the battle—whether military or corporate—kindness and calmness will reassure followers.

9. Have vision.

10. Learn to be aware when fear grips you. If we don’t understand that “fear is normal and has to be controlled and overcome, it will paralyze us and stop us in our tracks,” Powell writes. “We will no longer think clearly or analyze rationally. We prepare for it and control it; we never let it control us. If it does, we cannot lead.”

11. Perpetual optimism is a force ­multiplier.

— Adapted from It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership, Colin Powell.

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